


Snapshot

by Clocketpatch



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2013-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-28 19:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/995470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocketpatch/pseuds/Clocketpatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donna, getting back to life after JE</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshot

**Author's Note:**

> Because I can't get these little bits of Donna out of my head, but I can't seem to put them into a coherent whole either. So, I think I'm going to serialize the vignettes. Perhaps they'll fall into some sort of coherent order. Perhaps you'll even get a chaptered story at some point. I don't know. (though, before that happens I want to finish the WIPs I've got up on site...)
> 
> * * *

Days go by, all the same. Days of office work, and silly parties, and silly friends. Days of chasing the next great thing; be it a man, a promotion, or a new piece of celebrity gossip.

_So, Donna Noble, this is your life._

 

 

*

 

 

There was no window by her cubicle. She was trapped in the middle of the room; the huge room that took up the entirety of the Steg Building’s fourth floor. If she stood, and craned her neck to look around the pillar, she might see past the maze of grey cubicle walls and grey hunchbacked workers, typing hard under the florescent lights. She might see to where the windows were, lined along the western wall, just to the left of the toilets and the water cooler.

If she looked, she might see a bit of cloud and blue, if it were night (and the night came well within office hours during the winter) she might see stars poking through the London smog and light pollution.

But she didn’t look. Not for long.

She was too busy staring at her softly humming computer screen. Her fingers moved along the keyboard, adding to the room’s concert of _tap-tap-tap_ , like rain on pavement. Like the grey, grey days of her life. She played solitaire when she thought the boss wasn’t looking.

 

 

Her job was data-logging. She typed in statistics, and filed them into neat online folders with names like; victims, survivors, missing, recovered, earthquake damage, fiscal balance, aid allocation etc. etc. It took a lot of words to clean up after a disaster.

The Earth had _moved_ , or so they said. Donna wasn’t sure she believed it. A lot of people didn’t believe. There were conspiracy theorists popping up on every street corner, and, of course, the governments of the world had sent out an official explanation, linking the events to left over toxins from the ATMOS cars debacle. Hallucinations, they said. Something in the water. Something in the air.

Donna typed in some names which represented a family filing a claim on earthquake damage, caused by — what? Hallucinations didn’t cause earthquake damage, but the government probably had an explanation for that too. Donna couldn’t bring herself to care much. Her family had escaped the day of the so-called invasion relatively intact. Her friends had all been lucky as well — well, most of them anyway. And Donna’s own miniature _Day the Earth was Stolen_ calamity had been her own fault, and, when all was said and done, nothing to fuss about. Just something to bury, forget about, and move on.

The world might have flown across the stars, but life remained the same for Donna. She was still a temp, doing menial office work for employers who looked down on her as if she were the stupidest, lowest, most unnecessary being on the face of the planet. And maybe she was.

Whatever.

At least there was plenty of work in the aftermath for a fast typist. Nearly seven months on and people were still trying to mop up the damage.

The hands of the office clock, too far across the room for Donna to see, twitched into a new position. Donna made a few final clicks, closing her card game’s window and adding a few strokes of actual work to her data sheet.

The day ended.

She pulled her jacket off the back of her chair and retrieved her purse from her desk drawer. She filled out her timesheet and stepped into the elevator. The mirrored walls reflected her ordinariness.

She wasn’t unhappy, per say, or even dissatisfied. She wished she had shorter hours and a bigger paycheque — but then, didn’t everyone?

The air outside was crisp, and there was a fine dusting of snow. Winter’s last call before spring. Donna’s breath made a crystal cloud, and she pulled her coat tight. The fuzzy muff tickled her ears. Tall office blocks framed her walk to the bus stop, and constricted the sky, turning it into a river of fog and moonlight.

Back in her cubicle on the fourth floor, all was quiet and dark and still. Everyone had gone home for the night. On Donna’s desk sat several framed photos, of her mother and grandfather, of her late father, of her fiancé who had tragically died in a car crash.

And one snapshot, blurred by motion, of her at some medieval costume party she couldn’t remember — it must have been a good party — standing with some skinny man she didn’t remember, both of them making faces at the camera.

It was a bad picture, and Donna didn’t know why she kept it. Maybe to add some colour to the grey?

It started to snow again as Donna waited for her bus. Tiny, freckled flakes of frozen water vapour. She lifted her face to the snow, and it melted on her cheek. Tiny pricks of cold. She liked the snow. She hummed to it, some tune, constantly stuck in her head, that she didn’t know the words to. Then her mobile rang, cutting her off.

It was Andy, and she answered, and she was talking a mile a minute by the time the bus came, its wheels turning up a low spray of slush.

Donna boarded. She didn’t notice the man standing at the mouth of a nearby alley watching her, and she couldn’t have seen the blue box tucked somewhat further down the narrow lane.

The bus drove away.

The box disappeared.

 

 

*

 

 

_Is it worth it?_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_fini_

* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=26722>


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